Hello Wayne, I have been away at my daughters to take care of the animals for her. She was still there, but she has taken a job working at a friends bar/lounge, on Fridays and Saturdays, but she starts at around 3 and doesn't get home till around 4 in the morning, and since her girlfriend was away at her parents, it would have been just too long for their dog to not have a potty break. So, I stayed there with Pebbles, to take care of Nova, and Navarro. I still got to visit with her too, as I stayed there till Tuesday evening, and so we did get some time in visiting, which is always fun. But enough of that, I do have some questions regarding some information I have read in a few of your posts when you were describing the tests you have had, and the results, and what it meant. So my question is about your remarks about fecal fat tests you had done. Since I haven't heard too many people talk about having a positive result with this test, I was wondering if you could give me a little more information about it, and what it means? Why? Well when I first got sick, I suppose it had been building up for years, before I got the worst part of it, and I swear this to be true, as I had to write down everytime I went, and it was up to sometimes 40 times a day. Sometimes it was a little bit, and sometimes it was allot. My specialist had me do the 3 day fecal fat test. For 3 days I was to only go to the bathroom in what was exactly like a 1 gallon can of paint, minus the paint! Since I was going so much, with not much warning, I had set up an area in my basement bathroom shower stall. Lets just say I tried other ways to get it in the can only, and it worked best in the shower for me. After 3 days of that, it was completely full. I hammered the lid down, and also put the clamps on the lid that they provided, and put it in the plastic bag they gave me too, and twist tied it, put it in another bag and delivered it to the lab. A couple of days later I got a call, (some here have heard this story) it was the lab, and they said, Mrs. Bron we are so sorry, but your fecal sample was damaged in transport and we will have to have you do the test over again! I then asked her what exactly happened? She hesitated for a second or so, then said, well, Mrs. Bron, it exploded. It seems that because the can was so full, it did not have enough room to expand or something and it built up methane gas, and blew up. Apparently, leaving quiet a mess for the poor person who was transporting it the another city, which was supposed to be Toronto, as I was living in Timmins at the time. The Lab person then told me I would have to come in and pick up another kit, only this time they would give me two cans, and should only fill them up halfway. And so I did. Three days later, I returned to the lab, and as it was right before Christmas, when I walked in I said Merry Christmas ladies, I have a special delivery for you. Then I put the two gallon cans on the counter, and proceeded to tell them that the lids were hammered on, clamped down, and packed in ice. They finally got through, and my results showed as they said an extremely high content of fat. Later on further tests showed chronic CC, and that it was medium to severe. But no one explained what the fecal fat test meant? But apparently it just registered as Hi. I do know that at the time I was losing around a pound eversecond day or so. It also took somewhere around the 6-8 months to finally find out about the CC. They did say that I had inflamation from the top of my throat right to my other end. All I knew is that I was sick and waak. But in a few of your posts you said that because of the fecal fat, damage was done to your bowels? But not all with CC have this happen,do you know anything moe about this, why it happens and what it does to you intestines? Just wondering, I tried finding something about it, but guess I was not wording it right in my search engine. If you have any information on this topic or a site that I can visit please let me know. Just trying to sort out a few things.
Thanks, kay, you can take the thinking cap off now.
Hugs
Wendy
Tex, Question time, get your thinking cap on
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Hi Wendy,
That was quite a story. I'll bet the poor delivery guy fouled his own pants, when that blew up, (probably in more ways than one). LOL.
The fecal fat test can be used to determine the proper functioning of the gallbladder, (or liver, if the gallbladder has been removed), the pancreas, and the intestines. Normal fat absorption requires bile from the gallbladder, (or liver, if the gallbladder has been removed, enzymes from the pancreas, and normal intestines. Fat malabsorption is called steatorrhea.
Normally there should be less than 7 grams of fat in the stool, per 24 hours. For people with diarrhea, however, up to 12 grams of fat per day may be malabsorbed, since diarrhea obviously interferes with fat absorption.
Some of the problems that can cause fat malabsorption are:
biliary cancer
biliary stricture
celiac disease
Crohn's disease
cystic fibrosis
pancreatic cancer
pancreatitis
short bowel syndrome (e.g., from surgery or congenital anomaly)
sprue
In most cases, cancer, surgery, and pancreas problems can be ruled out, and so the test is mostly used to detect damage to the small intestine, specifically, damage by gluten. For gluten sensitive individuals, the small intestine will eventually acrue enough damage that it is unable to absorb fat adequately, and consequently, many fat soluble nutrients are lost in the fecal stream.
The damange is usually in the form of atrophy or flattening of the villi, so that they are no longer able to effectively absorb nutrients. This damage can take a long time to heal. I still showed borderline damage, after three years and nine months on a GF diet.
It's true that not everyone with MC has this problem, and for some who do have the problem, their small intestines heal much more quickly, once they cut out all gluten. Generally, the longer the damage has been accumulating, the longer it takes to heal.
Much of the information in the first part of this post is based on information found in a medical encyclopedia, of the U. S. National Library of Medicine:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency ... 003588.htm
The 12 gram limit for people with diarrhea, comes form this encyclopedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_fat
The rest is just a basic discription of gluten damage, in sensitive individuals.
If I haven't properly addressed your question, please let me know, and I'll try to do a better job of zeroing in on what you are searching for.
Hugs,
Wayne
That was quite a story. I'll bet the poor delivery guy fouled his own pants, when that blew up, (probably in more ways than one). LOL.
The fecal fat test can be used to determine the proper functioning of the gallbladder, (or liver, if the gallbladder has been removed), the pancreas, and the intestines. Normal fat absorption requires bile from the gallbladder, (or liver, if the gallbladder has been removed, enzymes from the pancreas, and normal intestines. Fat malabsorption is called steatorrhea.
Normally there should be less than 7 grams of fat in the stool, per 24 hours. For people with diarrhea, however, up to 12 grams of fat per day may be malabsorbed, since diarrhea obviously interferes with fat absorption.
Some of the problems that can cause fat malabsorption are:
biliary cancer
biliary stricture
celiac disease
Crohn's disease
cystic fibrosis
pancreatic cancer
pancreatitis
short bowel syndrome (e.g., from surgery or congenital anomaly)
sprue
In most cases, cancer, surgery, and pancreas problems can be ruled out, and so the test is mostly used to detect damage to the small intestine, specifically, damage by gluten. For gluten sensitive individuals, the small intestine will eventually acrue enough damage that it is unable to absorb fat adequately, and consequently, many fat soluble nutrients are lost in the fecal stream.
The damange is usually in the form of atrophy or flattening of the villi, so that they are no longer able to effectively absorb nutrients. This damage can take a long time to heal. I still showed borderline damage, after three years and nine months on a GF diet.
It's true that not everyone with MC has this problem, and for some who do have the problem, their small intestines heal much more quickly, once they cut out all gluten. Generally, the longer the damage has been accumulating, the longer it takes to heal.
Much of the information in the first part of this post is based on information found in a medical encyclopedia, of the U. S. National Library of Medicine:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency ... 003588.htm
The 12 gram limit for people with diarrhea, comes form this encyclopedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_fat
The rest is just a basic discription of gluten damage, in sensitive individuals.
If I haven't properly addressed your question, please let me know, and I'll try to do a better job of zeroing in on what you are searching for.
Hugs,
Wayne
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.